


in the easy silence that you make for me

by justdrifting



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/M, Pure Unadulterated Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 08:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10895397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdrifting/pseuds/justdrifting
Summary: In the mornings, in (usually, these days) M’gann’s quiet, dawn-tinged apartment, in his own space, J'onn likes to sit and watch the world go by; and, just for a little while, not be responsible for it.And lately…lately he likes to watch M’gann.[the way J’onn and M’gann adapt and integrate their lives; a series of disjointed scenes and headcanons]





	in the easy silence that you make for me

**Author's Note:**

> i am so incredibly emotional about these two, and _no one else is_ and it is _devastating_. i think as a result, this is so fluffy i'm almost ashamed. i don't really know what this is- half headcanon, half fic? who knows? an emotional outlet, basically. (title from the dixie chicks.)

J’onn is an early riser. Fifteen years at the DEO and not late a single day, he has a routine. With the inclusion of Alex, then Kara, the rest of the superfamily, and now M’gann in his life, that routine is regularly interrupted. But for the most part the mornings remain the same, and he likes it that way. ( _Well_. More often than not these days he finds his weekend mornings spent with M’gann, or at brunch with Alex and Kara, instead of tucked away in a DEO training room…but no one needs to know about that.)

He likes watching the sun rise, striking golden rays streaking over the horizon, chasing away the night. He likes how quiet it is in the early morning, before most humans are awake. The constant hum of their thoughts is still there, of course, but it’s far softer than later in the day. He likes taking the time to just be still. Life at the DEO is fast-paced and intense – all thrumming adrenaline and split second, life or death decisions resting squarely, at times heavily, on his shoulders. In the mornings, in (usually, these days) M’gann’s quiet, dawn-tinged apartment, in his own space, he likes to sit and watch the world go by; and, just for a little while, not be responsible for it.

And lately…lately he likes to watch M’gann.

She’s not exactly a peaceful sleeper, and he’s not sure why he expected her to be. Even in sleep she’s restless, hardly ever still, and her face is stiff, brow furrowed and a little frown curving her mouth down. He thinks she looks troubled, though he knows she’s not. But he likes the opportunity to just watch her: the way the bright early morning sun halos her sleeping form, casting dramatic shadows over her features; the way it makes her skin gleam, how her eyelashes flutter and her fingers twitch, and the measured rise and fall of her chest.

Mostly, he likes paying attention to her dreams. Sometimes it’s a nightmare, and on those mornings he wakes her slowly, gently, his hands over her arms, her face, as he coaxes her away from whatever terror is haunting her this time. It’s a traumatic experience for the both of them – his nightmares, too; neither of them are without their scars – and she shakes when she wakes but holds him extra tight all the same.

Most days, though, she dreams whimsical, nonsensical adventures: light-hearted imaginings starring him and their friends and many of the colourful characters she meets at the bar. She dreams frequently, to his surprise and amusement, of dogs. Almost every morning there’s a new furry friend accompanying them, and J’onn never would have guessed, never would have even imagined. But her dreams give him an insight into her thoughts, utterly unguarded, and he’s learning – slowly but surely – of all the things about her person that she dares not share with anyone else.

*

M’gann is _not_ a morning person. _Not_. _At_. _All_. The alien bar is far from the first pub M’gann’s worked in, and she’s long since adapted to a schedule of late nights and subsequent late mornings. And unlike J’onn, M’gann is not a fan of the quiet. With other people’s thoughts buzzing through her mind, it’s far easier to keep her own troubled reflections at bay – her guilt, her regret. For M’gann, nights are easier. Besides, she’s actually quite a sound sleeper, and being forced to wake up with an alarm is _pure fucking hell_.

With J’onn, it’s not so bad. She usually wakes at some point while he’s getting ready in the morning, still unused to someone else sharing her space. But it’s nice to doze, drifting in and out of sleep, as he moves about her apartment. She’ll wake at the first sound of the shower running, but fall asleep to the repetitive drumming of the water. Then come to again when the kettle whistles because J’onn forgot to take it off the stove in time, or when he stumbles against the side of the couch while getting dressed. J’onn’s thoughts are almost always quiet in the morning; calm and methodical, focused only on his morning routine (or, sweetly, her), and listening to him often soothes her back to sleep.

Sometimes she sleeps through, and it’s only when J’onn drags her blinds open, letting sunlight fill the apartment and hit her face, that she finally wakes. She wants to be mad about it, she does, but it’s hard to hold onto that anger, when she groggily blinks her eyes open and the first thing she sees is one of two things: J’onn watching her, his expression unreadable and his thoughts overwhelming; or, J’onn sitting on her couch, looking serenely out the window, his whole being relaxed in a way he never is at other times of the day. It affords her the opportunity to just watch him, his defences down, utterly at ease in her space, with her.

She rarely actually gets up to join him, snuggly and warm under the blankets as she is. But he meets her gaze and smiles at her, soft, _soft_ , before going back to whatever he was doing. She likes watching him move about her apartment as he prepares for the day; she likes sharing this little part of her existence with him, before the real world – their responsibilities and their realities – comes knocking.

*

M’gann is grumpy as hell when she first wakes up. J’onn finds it both hilarious and incredibly endearing. Her thoughts are usually something along the lines of ‘ _No. No no no no no. Fuck no._ ’ and ‘ _Why, J’onn, why._ ’ Her words are similarly monosyllabic. She pouts at him, and whines about being awake, and calls him all sorts of creative names for being crazy enough to voluntarily get up so early. And J’onn loves it; endures her moaning with a smile and gentle kiss to her forehead, as he tries not to laugh at her dramatics. Because most of the time M’gann is so reserved, so controlled and subdued, but in this not-yet-awake state, in the privacy of her own space, she lets that tight control relax a little, lets herself just _be_.

She looks up at him with wide, sleepy, adorable eyes, and she’s extra clingy like this, still half asleep, and it tugs at him. When he’s leaving, and leaning over the bed to say goodbye, she often pulls at his hand instead, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. Or, even with her eyes still closed, she’ll angle her head towards him, searching – and how can J’onn resist, _how can he resist_ ; taking the time to press feather light kisses over her face; her forehead, her nose, her lips and chin, until her eyes are open and she’s smiling and holding his face and, finally, letting him go.

*

J’onn eats Cocoa Puffs for breakfast. M’gann thinks he is _utterly_ ridiculous. With what she’d known about him, she had expected he’d start his day with something hearty and healthy – muesli, or oatmeal. That first morning at his place, when he’d nonchalantly pulled out the box of sugary children’s cereal, she’d laughed until her sides hurt. But now her kitchen cupboards are lined with all of J’onn’s snacks, and there’s something that twists and tightens in her chest every time she catches sight of that absurd bird on the front of the cereal box.

M’gann isn’t someone who eats breakfast – most of the time she’s not up early enough for it to be worth it. J’onn, however, believes breakfast is _essential_ , even if it is sugar instead of fibre. He is genuinely really affronted that M’gann always skips it, and endeavours to rid her of the habit.

On days when she’s awake enough to sit up by the time he eats, he’ll bring her a bowl as well as his own and join her on the bed. She grumbles, still mostly half asleep, leaning most of her weight against him, swirling her spoon through the milk until she creates brown mush before she starts to eat. (‘ _Sacrilege,_ ’ J’onn had thought once. Unluckily for him, M’gann had heard, and now she mostly just does it to frustrate him, because she thinks it’s funny watching him try not to get worked up over something as trivial as cereal etiquette…and because she’s a brat in the mornings.)

The days when she’s just a M’gann-shaped lump in bed, blankets pulled up over her head to block out the light, he fills a bowl and leaves it on the kitchen counter, often even accompanied by a sweet little note, for her when she eventually gets up. M’gann would just leave it, because she’s just a little bit petty sometimes, but she finds the gesture so incredibly, overwhelmingly sweet that she always ends up doing what he wants anyway.

*

Some weekend mornings, when J’onn makes to get up and get ready for work far too early for her liking, M’gann grabs at his shirt, or his shoulder, or his arm. Barely awake, with her eyes still closed, she tells him, ‘ _Stay,_ ’ and pulls him back down to bed. It’s only on days when she knows it’s been a tough week, or a long night; on days she knows he’s not actually needed at the DEO; on days when she knows that what he really needs is a break, some rest. On those days, she’ll roll over on top of him, pinning him down and forcing him to stay – ‘ _Checkmate, J’onn._ ’ – as she swiftly falls back to sleep with her face tucked into his neck and her legs tangled with his.

J’onn rarely sleeps again, but he’s more than content to lie there with M’gann’s warm weight against him, relishing the intimate physical contact, the likes of which he hasn’t had in so many hundreds of years. He soothes his fingers up and down her sleep-warmed spine and listens to her heavy breathing, her quiet heartbeat.

When he grows restless for his regular morning routine, he wriggles out from under M’gann to put both the kettle and the coffee pot on. J’onn is a tea drinker, can’t stand the taste of coffee, but M’gann is _addicted_. Breakfast may not be important to her, but coffee sure as hell is. J’onn has figured out that the best way to rouse M’gann in the morning is a steaming cup of coffee. (Though even that only works once the sun is ‘officially up’ as she calls it, and he has to try very hard not to laugh at the serious expression on her face.)

So J’onn makes his tea and her coffee, and takes his usual spot on the couch by the window. Relaxing into pillows that smell of M’gann, he watches the traffic moving below him, sips his tea, and listens to M’gann’s grumbling thoughts. Eventually the smell of coffee lures her out from under the blankets and to J’onn’s side. With her mug cradled in her palms, she curls into him, her shoulder against his chest, her legs hanging over the side of his lap and her forehead against his collarbone.

It always takes her awhile to wake fully. M’gann, half asleep and not yet completely cognisant, is so much freer, so much more at ease, than usual. There’s a moment, and if J’onn pays enough attention to her thoughts he can pinpoint the exact second, when she wakes enough to remember– to remember Mars, and the war, and all the dead bodies she’s seen, and the guilt she still carries for her part in it. Holding her, he feels the change go through her physically, a subtle stiffening in her muscles and the way she sighs. Mentally, it’s almost like a cloak settling over her, like night coming far too early. Suddenly, her existence is heavier. J’onn has known sadness intimately, known grief and guilt and regret. But the way M’gann feels it…it’s something else. It’s been better, he knows, since his forgiveness, his friendship, but this is a burden he’s sure she will carry with her forever, no matter how he wishes she wouldn’t.

As it is there isn’t anything he can do, isn’t anything he can say. But when she sighs and starts to pull away, what he can do is hold her tighter, press a kiss to her temple and then his forehead to hers. He can’t fix it, but he can soothe the sharpness of her reality just a little bit, just a little bit. And she grips his shirt in her fists and breathes into his chest, and her body softens slightly against his, and it doesn’t solve everything, it doesn’t suddenly absolve her guilt, but god is it so much more than she ever thought she deserved.

The morning’s sun slowly fills the apartment, spilling over their skin. For years J’onn has gone about his routines alone, and he’s been okay with that. But now there is M’gann, solid and so very warm against him, sleepy but smiling anyway as she links their free hands together… Now there is M’gann, sharing it all with him.

**Author's Note:**

> please come shout at me about m'gann or m'gann/j'onn @ [jossscarter](http://jossscarter.tumblr.com/). i'm always up for prompts, headcanons, or feelings about fandom.


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